Episode 1: the Jedi Masters
by thebumblingblockhead
Summary: A complete re-imagining of the first prequel to Star Wars: A New Hope.
1. Author's Note on Story Redux

Preface and Author's Note:

To my previous readers:

I apologize for halting what had been a rather steady stream of progress. Please allow me to explain . . .

A lot of questions were put to me during the development of the first four chapters, as they appeared in submission, which seriously made me reconsider my presentation of the story. In short, I realized that I wanted to flesh out each particular episode like I would a novel, rounding out events that, before, were simply left un-extrapolated.

Characters that were thrown away in the original incarnation (short as it was) have been re-included to round out the events and to fill in the gaps that were, obviously, too confusing. So, rather than opening with, "so, yeah, all that stuff over there just happened," I re-write to _show_, rather than _imply _what went on. Master Fedor is now fully included in the story, rather than simply being a footnote character.

What possessed me to pass over Obi-Wan's initial training as though it were unimportant? I dunno.

I any event, here is the first chapter of my story, going back significantly further than I'd originally intended. I'm afraid that, in order to present it like a novel, the material will move by in a fashion that, compared to other works on this site, is relatively slow, but hopefully with enough richness of action and idea, when they do present themselves, to keep you reading.

All gratitude to those of you who have dared to examine my work so far.

Sincerely,

thebumblingblockhead.


	2. Chapter One

PART ONE:

The Way Called Jedi

-Chapter One-

Fedor Brestbann casually sucked at the pink drink that he had managed to cobble together from the various, unfamiliar liquors he'd found in the chiller of the G9Y-Planethopper. Furnished for the use of planetary Barons, certain modifications had been made to ensure the comfort of passengers; hence the liquor. Not all of the more exotic bottles were labeled, and those that were often were illegible to him. In the end, the hours of space-travel had produced a wealth of inventiveness in the man who was bored to the point of desperation by the star-sprinkled black panorama of never-ending space. He'd taken to his favorite diversion to pass the hours, and was well into his cups by the time any real conversation struck.

Always liberal in matters of mixture, he had simply eyeballed the portions as he freely dumped first one and then another alien brew into a glass. He stared at the most recent thing he'd created, between sips, intently trying to determine if the alcohol had got the better of him. "I think it's glowing," he said, mostly to himself.

In front of him, one of the two human pilots, tight lipped fellows up this point, turned and said, "What's that, sir?"

Sharply brought up out of the fog of his buzz, Fedor said, "What? Oh . . . nothing, it's just that I've made myself a drink here, and I think . . . I think that it's glowing." He held up the glass containing his concoction, certain that he could detect a faint pulsating light emanating from it.

The two men cackled, and the one who had spoken clutched at his sides. "That's Arctellian brandy, sir," he said, once he found his breath again. "It glows when impurities are introduced."

The diminutive jedi frowned at his oscillating reflection in the surface of the liquor. "How odd."

"It's a royal beverage, you see," continued the co-pilot on the left. "It's supposed to act like a poison detector. Poison gets introduced into the royal's drink, the drink glows, he knows it's been tampered with. See?"

"Do they ever drink anything else?"

"Oh sure."

Fedor shrugged, nonplused. "It seems a moot point, then," he said, and downed the mischievous potion in a single gulp. "How long until we're in Kenobi space?"

"It'll be a good while yet, sir. The trip totals about a day and a half from the core worlds in one of these shuttle-craft."

". . . would've preferred a machine with some muscle in its reactors to the little scrap of a fairy-boat that this is," muttered the, now drink-less, new tutor to the Baron's son.

"Sir, may I ask you a personal question?"

A smile appeared on the face of Master Fedor Brestbann. It would appear the rift between himself and the two escorts sent to fetch him away from Coruscant had closed a bit. "Ask away," he said as gestured clumsily with the wave of a magnanimous hand.

"Heard tell, sir, that you are going to train the baron-heir in the way of Jedi."

The small man smiled enigmatically. "That wasn't a question."

Nameless pilot number two laughed at that, and the first smiled, good-naturedly. But persisted. "Well, are you?"

"Am I what?"

"A jedi?"

There was a long stretch of quiet, then, and when Fedor nodded his grey head his smile gone and mirth evaporated. The cherry that had grown in the end of his bulbous nose felt hot, and he rubbed at it with a handy chip of ice. "Of some variety or another," he said.

It was not really any kind of answer, but if the pilot who had asked let the matter drop. Just as well, as he really was quite ready to nod off and let hours of hyperspace slip by.

The man who had once been Master of a martial academy on a core world, raised a wrinkled hand toward the white leather ottoman that had been set with a longer set of legs in mind. It slid across the shallow rug almost soundlessly until he released his mental tug on the thing, satisfied. His feet comfortably propped up, he lay back against the deep softness of the armchair, and wondered at the lifestyle of those born into the burden of power. Gently, his eyes closed, weighted by alien liquor, and he thought back to his old home, to Foshan.

One could stand, in the center square of that city of the jedi, and turn from east to west, north to south, eyes falling on every temple and academy that rose up in silhouette against an impossibly bright sky, without finding two with philosophies in common, while all still spoke of the way of the way of jedi in hushed and intimate tones.

The masters and their subordinate instructors believed not in way, but in _style_. The Kagong style jedi temple, and Qui-Lo style jedi academy had been constructed opposite one another on the square, two of a hundred distillations of the arts of jedi combat, while the more spiritual Ascetic clan, with their bright orange robes and featureless porcelain masks, practiced a thing they called jedi which was almost totally devoid of any physical element at all. Jedi was a religion, a martial discipline, a stamp of classical education; it was multiform and completely undefinable, for what one group consumed and called food, another vomited out.

Enter the sanctuary of any militant jedi denomination, the seedling of a long-extinct tree with stronger root, and you would surely be asked to kneel at the phrase, "the master teaches us . . ." That same master's banner, symbol of his proprietary techniques and special magics, would be hung from every empty space, high so that the even worlds beyond might see and marvel. Besmirch the name of the master, call his branded invention by any demeaning term, and prepare to see lightsaber blades ignited in defense of precious honor and the promise of future disciples.

Most of those schools struggled against one another constantly, seeking the recognition that the defeat of a rival style would provide. Tournaments were conducted on almost a monthly basis; jedi learned, and practiced, mostly to fight his kind, in these late days. The core of principles of what composed the true training of the mystic-knight was decided in practice bouts that were confined to the limits of circles drawn on the floor in glowtape; to step out of bounds during such a match was to forfeit to the hopelessly misguided opponent who pursued a vision of madness and called it jedi.

Foshan, a world synonymous with Jedi, was a planet populated by bellicose sects that, starved for any genuine purpose, had turned to faction for self-definition. What great, unifying body of knowledge there had once been . . . it was gone, evaporated, now, from the training halls of the endlessly posturing warrior clans.

_Was I ever really one of them? _The memories of silk uniforms emblazoned with patches that bore his own stamp, a three-tongued black flame, seemed distant and trite. And now, he was returning to the role of masters. He had stooped, again, to the task of instruction where he had so miserably performed before. The man he had been, back then, intent on cementing his style of a thing he'd sophomorically termed Third firestyle, was a fool with a glowing plasma stick and a lifetime's worth of arrogance.

There had been nights, since what he now thought of as his awakening, that he wondered what lessons he'd taught to the sea of faces that had stood at rapt attention in the training yard beneath his balcony. What lies had he told them? On what inane paths set them? The Force, which parted for him occasionally to show the things of the now, the then, and the twilight-dim of the will-be, had remained obstinately silent. He supposed that it was something like penance to not know, to not be satisfied, even in that stubborn kernel of self-loathing.

At times, his mind protested and pled for the amnesty toward self that he would afford the meanest alien, _I didn't know! I taught them what I thought right at the time, only ever acted with the best intentions!_

And the very voice of the man answer that disarmed and shrunken self that would deny the damnation set on by some little dram of evil, answered back. _"_The mighty arcitechture that ends entire worlds may be sculpted out of the very best of intentions._"_

_It was all honest mistakes!_

"You lied with every word."

_I'm sorry! I was misguided!_

"Misguided, but not harmless," muttered master Fedor to himself as he drifted deeper into that comfortable black blanket behind his eyelids.

. . . But there was a chance at redemption. Just before sleep took him, his lips and tongue formed the name of his first pupil in two hundred years, the baron-heir to a slice of the mighty Arctellian military, favorite arm of the Galactic Republic. One last pupil, a young mind to guide, to deliver into The Force. He would show the _true _way, beyond the trappings of ego-centric styles, a way that required an even mind and a wealth of patience. The boy . . . the jedi to be.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi." No sooner had he breathed the name than it was gone, as if the air had stolen the sound from of his breath, and carried it in secret to the very bosom of The Force where the masters slept. Darkness took him then, and the stirring of grave-sour memories better left interred was, mercifully, stilled.


End file.
